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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25195720">sharp letters</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tusktooth/pseuds/tusktooth'>tusktooth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Relationships, Campaign 03: The Unsleeping City, Gen, Platonic Soulmates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:15:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,700</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25195720</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tusktooth/pseuds/tusktooth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>when the name appeared on pete's skin, he decided not to look at it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kingston Brown &amp; Pete the Plug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>146</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sharp letters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>just a note/warning: pete mentions fearing getting deadnamed a few times in the fic but it does NOT happen. also this fic contains spoilers through the end so don't fuck yourself by reading it before you finish.<br/>anyway stan platonic soulmates and <a href="http://adaine.tumblr.com/">you can find me on tumblr</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Pete had never looked at his soulmate tattoo. It wasn’t as if he could if he tried. On his 18th birthday, the light scribble of ink had appeared on the back of his head, just below his hairline. If he was going to see it, then someone had to take a picture and show him and he didn’t want that, so he allowed his shaggy brown hair to grow out just enough to cover the words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had been riding a wave of freedom on the time. A few weeks prior, he had packed up his essentials and moved to New York, where he could finally be </span>
  <em>
    <span>himself</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He was living out of an overcrowded LGBT youth center in Brooklyn and working a job that was beyond shitty, sure, but he had also purchased a binder and found a doctor willing to help him get hormones under the radar as well as meds to treat his seasonal affective disorder. Pete could finally be </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pete</span>
  </em>
  <span> and the last thing he needed was to get into a relationship with someone that literally had his deadname tattooed on their body. So he covered up the tattoo and made the conscious decision not to look. Maybe he would someday when he was ready for it, but that day wasn’t today.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he met Priya Danger. Priya, who didn’t have a soulmate tattoo and didn’t give a fuck because she was complete all on her own and didn’t need anyone else unless it was on her own terms. She didn’t care that Pete did have a soulmate that he didn’t want to know about. If anything, it was something that she </span>
  <em>
    <span>liked</span>
  </em>
  <span> about him. He wasn’t bending to the norm of seeking out this person the day you turned 18 and revolving your life around them even though they were, more often than not, a complete stranger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One day, when they were sitting half-naked on the couch in her apartment, which Pete had taken to living in recently, passing a blunt back and forth, she brought it up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I see?” she asked, idly playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stiffened up a little. “I don’t want to know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She snorted. “I didn’t say I was going to tell you. Really, Peter, do you think that little of me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t,” he replied, still feeling a bit uncomfortable with it but motioning for her to look anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh,” she said after reading the name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not you, is it?” he asked, eyes widening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had no idea how she would react if her name was printed on his skin. Pete had heard of multiple soulmates before, but not one-sided soulmates and, if he was the first person to have a one-sided soulmate, that would be kind of pathetic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you didn’t want to know who it was,” she replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t. I just-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Priya rolled her eyes. “It’s not me. I don’t have a soulmate. You already know this, Peter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You just had a weird reaction,” he explained. “Is it someone that you know? Wait, shit, don’t tell me”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My surprise wasn’t because it was any person in particular,” she assured him. “It was only that it appears as if your soulmate is a guy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” he said quietly. “I mean, I do like guys. I just like girls more often.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter anyway. This whole soulmate thing is arbitrary,” she said. “Some people will marry their soulmate and resent them for their entire lives when they could have been happier with someone else. Not all soulmates are romantic or sexual in nature anyway. Platonic soulmates are extremely common in identical twins but not unheard of elsewhere. Many people just act under the assumption that their soulmate is the one they’re meant to marry which is truly disastrous on a cultural level.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” he replied, only half clocking everything that she was saying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes I feel bad for you because of it, Peter,” she told him. “You can attempt to ignore it all that you’d like but, so long as that name is printed on your neck, you’ll never really be free.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pete bit his lip and, for a moment, he wanted to take a look at it, see who held the chains that were binding him down, but he remained resilient. He didn’t want to know and, if he asked, he knew Priya would probably just dump him for it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, they broke up anyway and that conversation drifted from his mind, even though he still thought about her often. His life kind of fell to shit after it ended, to be honest, but it was still good in certain respects. Sure, he was dealing drugs and living off of microwaved cheese and his own supply, but he also got top surgery and got the freedom to live for himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then everything happened with Nod and the Dream Team and, honestly, he didn’t think of soulmates at all. He was the fucking Vox Phantasma, who cared about some name on his neck? Pete was able to feel that same sense of freedom that he felt in his early moments in New York again, now that he had well and truly moved past his relationship with Priya, who held the actual chains that had been binding him, and this time around, he had a small army of friends at his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He started to work in a bookshop in Kingston’s neighborhood and help kids embrace their dreams and themselves in general and it’s really good to not be a drug dealer anymore but a </span>
  <em>
    <span>dream</span>
  </em>
  <span> dealer. The whole concept of soulmates turned from something he resented and feared into something that he found silly at best. Life was what you could dream into it, so what did a couple of letters matter in the grand scheme of things?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night, when he’s at Ricky’s hanging out with him and Sofia and chatting and drinking soda since he and Sofia weren’t really drinking anymore and Ricky, who had a large bottle of water in his hand, was on a cleanse anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were watching some dumb reality TV show that none of them actually paid any attention to at this point because they always just talked over it. At some point, the subject of soulmates came up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you know that Rowan doesn’t have a soulmate tattoo?” Sofia asked. “I wonder if that’s a fairy thing or just a her thing. Like, at first I thought it was because her new body is only like half a year old but that’s not the case. Apparently, her old body didn’t have one either, if you’d believe that shit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not everyone has a soulmate,” Ricky pointed out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pete nodded. “Yeah, it’s true. Priya didn’t have one either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wonder if Kugrash had one under all that fur,” Sofia said. “Though, I think I might have noticed it when I brushed him out so maybe not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He was a rat,” Pete pointed out. “Maybe his human body had one before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you know that Kingston’s soulmate isn’t Liz?” she told them. “The tattoo is on his ankle and I couldn’t get a good look at it but it definitely didn’t say ‘Liz Herrera’. Good on them for getting together anyway, again! What about you, Mr. March? Is Esther’s name printed on those sexy abs?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, actually,” he said, lifting him his shirt to reveal her name printed in small print near the top of his ribcage. “They had to photoshop it out when they did the calendar. I’m honestly surprised that nobody noticed before. You guys have seen me shirtless more than once. What about you, Sofia?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Check it,” she said, pulling down her collar uncomfortably low to reveal a twin pair of names, one written on the top of each boob with ‘Em’ inscribed on the left and ‘Dale Lee’ on the right. “When Em’s name appeared we thought that shit was a mistake ‘cause she doesn’t have a last name but turns out ‘Angel of the Waters’ doesn’t fit on a tit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s cool that you have two soulmates,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sofia smiled. “It’s really great, actually. Like Dale is gone and it’s nice to still have a soulmate here. And when he comes to visit, he’s like fine with it and whatever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about you, Pete?” Ricky asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” he said, biting his lip briefly. “I don’t actually know who my soulmate is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like you don’t have one?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I have one,” he replied. “I just haven’t ever looked.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Holy shit, is it printed on your ass or something?” she asked. “There was a guy in my neighborhood when I was a kid that woke up with his girlfriend’s name on the bottom of his dick but he just took a picture of that shit and was good to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s here,” he told them, pointing to the spot that he knew it was on the back of his neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s really sad,” Ricky said. “All this time and you just couldn’t see it. I can take a picture if you want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I choose not to look,” he explained. “I just don’t want to know who it is, you know? Because then my whole life will circle around it. I like to think if my soulmate is really out there, we’ll just happen upon each other at some point.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean what does a name fucking matter anyway?’ Sofia asked. “My ma had my dad on her leg and you know that she’s happier without him now. Like it’s just a name, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded. “I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But, while I am curious, I’m not gonna peek unless you want me to,” she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He paused for a moment. Maybe he wouldn’t mind if they looked. Currently, the only person who knew was Priya and he didn’t love that she’d always have that power over him, being the only one in the world who knew who his soulmate was except for the person wearing his name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You two can look,” he decided.”Just don’t tell me. Priya looked so I guess it just doesn’t matter to me if other people know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sofia ran over and scooted onto the spot next to him, pawing at his hair as Ricky squatted down on the other side of the couch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Holy shit,” Sofia exclaimed! “Holy fucking shit!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pete flipped around to see them staring with equal expressions of surprise, though Sofia’s seemed more excited while Ricky was more confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow,” Ricky said. “Isn’t he a little-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She whacked him on the arm. “It’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>platonic</span>
  </em>
  <span> soulmate thing. C’mon, it really makes a shitload of sense when you think about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So it’s someone that we know,” he said with a sigh. This was it. He was gonna find out right here, as much as he didn’t really want to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could say that!” Sofia replied. “Holy fucking shit, Pete. Like, oh my </span>
  <em>
    <span>God</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If it helps, I don’t think you would be upset if you knew who it was,” Ricky told him. “But we don’t have to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took a deep breath and waved him on. “Just tell me, at this point.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ricky opened his mouth but Sofia slapped a hand over it and pulled out her phone. “Wait, I’ll show you a picture so you can see it for yourself. I don’t think you would believe us otherwise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she thrust the phone into his hands, his eyes widened. Written just below where his scalp ended in sharp cursive was a name that he recognized. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kingston Brown.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head. “There’s no way. He’s in his 50s.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s why I think it’s a platonic thing,” Sofia replied. “Unless you do want to fuck Kingston, though I don’t know if you’re his type.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wrinkled his nose. “No. I definitely don’t want to fuck </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kingston</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Like, he’s a handsome man and everything, but he’s also Kingston.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Definitely platonic,” Ricky agreed with a nod.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you think that we’re too different to be soulmates?” he asked the two of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean Esther is my soulmate and she’s super smart,” Ricky reasoned. “Just because I don’t always understand what she’s talking about doesn’t mean that we aren’t soulmates.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It makes sense,” Sofia told him. “You two are the Vox Phantasma and the Vox Populi, two halves of the same whole, yin and fucking yang, and all that shit. You’re opposites in a way that makes you fit together.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sofia grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up and toward the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re gonna go pay him a visit,” she said. “If anything just to confront him about not telling you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sofie,” he tried, briefly considering explaining that the name on Kingston probably wasn’t his name at all, but she was resilient and hauled him toward the door anyway. With Ricky’s help, they all left for Kingstons’ apartment, even if Pete did feel slightly like a prisoner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He answered quickly when they knocked, looking down at Pete hanging limply between their arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you do?” Kingston asked as he let the three of them inside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing!” Pete protested. “They just dragged me here!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Show us your ankle,” Sofia ordered. “This is about what </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> did, Kingston Brown?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ricky rushed across the room and started to pull down his sock. “Sorry, Kingston. We just need to know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He mumbled to himself as he read the words on Kingston’s ankle and then stood back up. “It’s not him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Sofia asked. “Let me look.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Great. Now all of his friends probably knew his fucking deadname.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ricky, what the hell are you talking about. It’s definitely him,” Sofia replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kingston’s eyes widened in realization. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter Conlan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded and then froze. “Wait, it actually says Peter?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, that’s your name, isn’t it?” Sofia asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I just thought that it would say </span>
  <em>
    <span>something else</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not how it works,” Kingston said. “It shows your real name, not necessarily the one that was forced upon you. Nobody ever told you this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shrugged. “I was on my own when I turned 18. My parents certainly never mentioned it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, since when is Conlan your last name?” Ricky asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Since birth,” he answered. “What the hell did you guys think my last name was?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ricky looked down at his feet shamefully. “The Plug.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sofia howled in laughter and slapped his back lightly. “Oh, Mr. March, you crack me up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kingston shrugged. “I didn’t know what your last name was, Pete. I figured that you weren’t this Peter because you never mentioned it. Doesn’t matter to me anyway. The city is my first concern, everything else comes after that. It makes a lot of sense, though. The two of us being in the same city at the same time was an act of grand fate so it’s understandable that it left a mark.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never looked before now,” he admitted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then maybe it was part of fate that we didn’t figure it out until after we saved the city,” Kingston suggested. “Feels more authentic that way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what now?” Pete asked. “Do I have to move back in. Because, while I did enjoy living at your place, being on my own now is pretty nice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kingston shrugged. “Nothing changes, Pete. We were soulmates before, we just didn’t know it. We continue to work together, we keep all six boroughs safe, and we keep learning from each other. Being someone’s soulmate means that your paths were meant to cross, not that you have to change your life around it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded. “That makes sense, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kingston patted him on the shoulder. “Happy to be your soulmate, Pete.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pete smiled, as he looked at Kingston and then over to Sofia and Ricky who were chatting loudly and laughing. He thought of Rowan, who was probably singing as they stood here, about Kugrash who was watching over them all. These people were his </span>
  <em>
    <span>family</span>
  </em>
  <span> it was comforting to know that there was one more string tying them together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Happy to be yours too.”</span>
</p>
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